Extortionist sentenced to 38 months in prison

Plumber Vito Iozzo stood before a federal judge Tuesday and told him: I know I've done wrong.

A cast on his right arm, Iozzo prepared to learn his sentence after admitting in September that he had taken part in a series of extortion plots, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting. One ended with a debtor giving up his Ford Mustang. Another, over a matter of $500,000, ended violently.

I get it, Iozzo told U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang.

But what upset Iozzo the most, he said, is that he let his four teenage children down. That he won't be around for them.

Nevertheless, the judge told Iozzo he had no choice but to separate the 43-year-old Elmhurst native from his family. He sentenced Iozzo to 38 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Iozzo also must pay $26,500 in restitution to one of the victims.

We resolve our disputes in places like this rather than out on the street, Chang said in his courtroom at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, calling that system a hallmark of civilization.

Iozzo pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to commit extortion after he was caught up in a series of federal grand jury indictments that accused Iozzo and several other men of using intimidation and physical violence to collect debts.

Federal prosecutors accused Iozzo of traveling to Wisconsin with two co-defendants, Mark Dziuban and George Brown, to help Dziuban collect on a $100,000 debt in 2010. Dziuban met his debtor in a restaurant, where he was soon joined by Iozzo and Brown, according to prosecutors.

Iozzo took the debtor's driver's license, wrote down the home address and told the debtor, Now we know where you live, prosecutors said. Later, Iozzo helped Dziuban bring the debtor's Ford Mustang back from Wisconsin.

Later, prosecutors said Iozzo helped Luigi Sardone in 2011 and 2012 plot to collect $500,000 from another debtor. Sardone is a co-defendant of Iozzo's in another case; prosecutors have said they plan to drop those charges against Iozzo.

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Extortionist sentenced to 38 months in prison